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Wednesday, 3 September 2014

A Fan Mistakes You For Stieg Larsson

The situation: Millennium trilogy being waved under your nose.

The symptoms: seething rage, disappointment, embarrassment.

You’re signing books at a local arts fair and it’s all going well. A fan approaches and tells you he’s your greatest fan. With wonky hair and absent teeth, he looks like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards whilst having a fight with a rabid lawnmower. You hope he isn’t your greatest fan, but you do like the attention. When he tells you he already has three of your paperbacks, you whoop inwardly. Then, he gets out his copy of your first book and it’s not your first book at all but Girl with the Frigging Dragon Tattoo.

You have two options: point out the reader’s mistake or let him believe that you are actually Stieg Larsson.

If you pretend to be Stieg, you’ll get to sign a book (albeit not your own). This option also avoids embarrassment. However you will be storing up problems for the poor reader later down the line, when he realises that Stieg died in 2004.